Yearly Archives: 2012

september 1–september 15

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Books

  • Fleur Jaeggy, Sweet Days of Discipline, translated by Tim Parks
  • Michal Ajvaz, The Other City, trans. Gerald Turner
  • Gore Vidal, Julian
  • China Miéville, The City & The City
  • Félix Fénéon, Novels in Three Lines, trans. Luc Sante
  • Jean-Phillipe Toussaint, Running Away, trans. Matthew B. Smith
  • Jean-Phillipe Toussaint, Making Love, trans. Linda Coverdale
  • Sergio Chejfec, My Two Worlds, trans. Margaret B. Carson

Films

  • Le petit soldat, directed by Jean-Luc Godard
  • Les Carabiniers, dir. Jean-Luc Godard
  • La Chinoise, dir. Jean-Luc Godard
  • Plague Summer, dir. Chester Kessler
  • La mort du cerf: une chasse à courre à Villiers-Cotterets, dir. Dimitri Kirsanoff
  • Image in the Snow, dir. Willard Maas
  • Celery Stalks at Midnight, dir. John Whitney
  • The Voices, dir. John E. Schmitz
  • Episodes in the Life of a Gin Bottle, dir. Bela von Block
  • Schichlegruber doing the Lambeth Walk, dir. Charles A. Ridley
  • Falling Pink, dir. Robert H. Spring
  • Beasts of the Southern Wild, dir. Benh Zeitlin

Exhibits

  • “Luis Camnitzer,” Alexander Gray Associates
  • “The Feverish Library,” Friedrich Petzel Gallery
  • “Penny Slinger: An Exorcism Revisited,” Broadway 1602
  • “Yayoi Kusama: Drawings from the mid-50s,” D’Amelio Gallery

august 16–august 31

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Books

  • Fleur Jaeggy, S.S. Proleterka, trans. Alastair McEwen
  • Bruce Kellner, Kiss Me Again: An Invitation to a Group of Noble Dames
  • Edouard Levé, Suicide, trans. Jan Steyn
  • Jorge Luis Borges & Adolfo Bioy-Casares, Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi, trans. Norman Thomas di Giovanni
  • Roberto Arlt, The Seven Madmen, trans. Nick Caistor
  • John O’Hara, Butterfield 8
  • Claudio Magris, A Different Sea, trans. M. S. Spurr
  • Adriano Spatola, The Porthole, trans. Beppe Cavatorta & Polly Geller

Films

  • What About Bob?, directed by Frank Oz
  • Margaret, dir. Kenneth Lonergan
  • Godard in America, dir. Ralph Thanhauser
  • BUtterfield 8, dir. Daniel Mann
  • Flying Deuces, dir. A. Edward Sutherland
  • The Broadway Melody, dir. Harry Beaumont
  • Sons of the Desert, dir. William A. Seiter
  • The Black Cat, dir. Edgar G. Ulmer

august 1–august 15

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Books

  • Luis Vaz de Camões, The Lusíads, translated by Landeg White
  • Rose Macaulay, They Went to Portugal Too
  • Carlotta Monti & Cy Rice, W. C. Fields & Me
  • René Belletto, Coda, trans. Alyson Waters

Films

  • Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, directed by Frank Tashlin

Exhibits

  • Museu Monográfico de Conimbriga, Condeixa-a-Nova, Portugal
  • Núcleo Museológico, Castelo de São Jorge, Lisbon, Portugal

anglo-lusitanian mistreatment of baboons, continued

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“Such pretty details as this [Nathaniel] Wraxall missed; also details less pretty, such as two men whom [Richard] Twiss observed when ‘strolling one day about Lisbon in search of new objects’, who had each a large baboon on his shoulders, freeing his head from vermin; it seems they were hired out for this purpose. ‘They seem’, says Twiss, ‘to be the lousiest people I know of, especially the women, who have an enormous quantity of hair.’ ”

(Rose Macaulay, They Went to Portugal Too, pp. 176–7.)

anglo-lusitanian mistreatment of baboons

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“Another, Jerome Allen, a century and a half later, an intimate of the Portuguese nobility and himself half Portuguese, became pen-maker to the court and a favourite of the king and queen, brilliantly conducted theological disputations before the court, and designed a balloon which (unlike some Portuguese balloons) really went up: it had for passenger an immense baboon in a sailor suit. The baboon, not liking the trip, jumped into the Tagus and was drowned, but, as he was a baboon of malevolent disposition, no one minded, and the episode added prestige to the college.”

(Rose Macaulay, They Went to Portugal Too, pp. 85–86.)

july 16–july 31

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Books

  • Victor Pelevin, The Yellow Arrow, translated by Andrew Bromfield
  • Alberto Moravia, Two Friends, trans. Marina Harss
  • Alberto Moravia, Conjugal Love, trans. Marina Harss
  • Charlotte A. E. Moberly & Eleanor F. Jourdain, An Adventure
  • César Aira, The Literary Conference, trans. Katherine Silver
  • César Aira, Ghosts, trans. Chris Andrews
  • Michael Allen Zell, Errata
  • Bruno Schulz, The Street of Crocodiles, trans. Jerzy Ficowski
  • Erih Koš, The Strange Story of the Great Whale, Also Known as Big Mac, trans. Lovett F. Edwards
  • Joshua Beckman & Jon Beacham, Porch Light (lamp and chair)
  • Sacheverell Sitwell, Portugal and Madeira
  • Norman Douglas, Some Limericks
  • Datus C. Proper, The Last Old Place: A Search Through Portugal

Films

  • You Can Count on Me, directed by Kenneth Lonergan
  • Laws of Gravity, dir. Nick Gomez
  • Boccaccio ’70, dir. Mario Monicelli, Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti & Vittorio De Sica

Exhibits

  • “Last Things & Other Forms: Herbert Pfostl & Jon Beacham,” 222 Roebling Street
  • “The Dawn of Egyptian Art,” Met
  • “Ellsworth Kelly: Plant Drawings,” Met
  • “Paintings on Parchment: Italian Renaissance Illuminations from the Robert Lehman Collection,” Met

sacheverell sitwell on facts & style

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“After Lisbon and Oporto, there are only two considerable towns in Portugal, Coimbra and Évora, and Évora, the smaller of the two, is the more interesting.*

* I find that Braga has a slightly larger population than Coimbra, but leave the remark unchallenged in order not to spoil my argument.”

(Sacheverell Sitwell, Portugal and Madeira, p. 142.)

an unambiguous attitude

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“Sergio envied the few resolute anti-Fascists he knew, Communists and the like, because their attitude was as clear as that of the Fascists. But he was not able to distill his doubts and disgust into an unambiguous attitude, a plan of action. Even though he hated Fascism, he felt that it had wormed its way into his blood, not in the form of political allegiance, but rather as a kind of torpor and mortal passivity, like a poison that slowly intoxicates and weakens the body.”

(Alberto Moravia, The Two Friends, trans. Marina Harss, version A, p. 11.)

july 1–july 15

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Books

  • John Ashbery, April Galleons
  • Julio Cortázar, The Winners, trans. Elaine Kerrigan
  • Erica Baum, Dog Ear
  • Amaranth Borsuk, Handcraft
  • Cees Nootebaum, The Following Story, trans. Ina Rilke

Films

  • Naked Lunch, directed by David Cronenberg
  • Charade, dir. Stanley Donen
  • Magic Mike, dir. Steven Soderbergh
  • Der amerikanische Soldat (The American Soldier), dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
  • Das blaue Licht (The Blue Light), dir. Leni Riefenstahl
  • Lisbon Story, dir. Wim Wenders